The Chocolate Collection. Trisha Ashley

to do with his illness, did you?’ Then I realised what I had just said and added, ‘No, of course you didn’t! What am I thinking of?’

      ‘Ill-wishing can lead to the opposite outcome to that desired, or rebound upon one’s head; though it seems to me that to wish something bad upon another person, when your heart is pure and unselfish in its intentions, should not cause such an unfortunate result,’ he said ambiguously. ‘It is a very grey area.’

      ‘Right…’ I said. Not that I agreed, it was just that I knew how pointless it would be to get into an argument with him on the subject.

      ‘We must protect ourselves while I consider my strategy, my dear Chloe. Florrie Snowball can help me there, for luckily her one great skill is the very thing we need now.’

      ‘You mean Mrs Snowball from the Falling Star?’

      He nodded, so it looks as though I was right in suspecting her of being another of his coven, along with the Frinton sisters. I wondered if there were any more in Sticklepond, whom I didn’t yet know about.

      ‘Do you know how the Falling Star got its name, Chloe?’

      ‘Yes, of course. The rock in the middle of the courtyard is supposed to be a meteorite. It’s got a brass plaque on it that says so, and that it mustn’t be moved because that would be unlucky. But it can’t have actually fallen there, because then the pub would be sitting in a huge crater, wouldn’t it?’

      ‘The sign means that it must never be moved from where it came to rest,’ he said, which was another of the kind of statements he was prone to make that could be interpreted in more ways than one. Really, sometimes his conversation was enough to make you feel dizzy.

      ‘It’s really inconvenient where it is now, because it’s right in the middle of the courtyard and cars are always getting scraped against it. I expect stagecoaches did too.’

      ‘It’s on one of the ley lines, the last landmark of significance before the conjunction here at the Smithy – and there may be three, for I am currently researching the possibility of an even more ancient one.’

      ‘Oh, right. How exciting for you, Grumps!’ I said, though I was still puzzling over where Mrs Snowball’s speciality came in. Unless he’d heard about the coffee machine, of course, and thought large amounts of caffeine might sharpen our wits?

      ‘If you could leave me now, Chloe – I must burn this,’ he indicated the box, ‘and then perform one or two rites to negate its power. You might put some more wood on the fire before you go.’

      ‘OK,’ I agreed, because although I was naturally curious about what was in the box, I wasn’t curious enough to actually want to see it.

      Anyway, this whole enmity thing between Grumps and Mr Mann-Drake was really just two old men playing an advanced real-life game of Dungeons and Dragons, wasn’t it? Or that’s what the logical part of my mind said, anyway!

      On the night of the new vicar’s welcome party I was at home in the sitting room, cutting the thin, almost transparent printed sheets of Wishes into small strips and feeling like Billy No-mates, even though it didn’t sound like the most exciting event ever. Jake was at Kat’s place (doing college work, allegedly) and the telly was absolute rubbish.

      In the end, I put the Bride and Prejudice DVD on for the hundredth time just for the bright colours, cheery music and Bollywood dancing. I know all the words to the songs, so I could sing along while I was working.

      I’d expected Poppy to ring me by mid-evening, but when she didn’t I assumed either the party was going on much later than she’d expected, or the new vicar had been a bit of a damp squib in the ex-pop star department.

      I suspected the latter. But since we were meeting up at the Falling Star after dinner on Monday night anyway, I supposed she and Felix would regale me with all the details then.

      Next morning I woke even earlier than usual and decided to walk up to the Spar to get a newspaper and stretch my legs, before attempting to prise Jake out of bed in time for college, though actually he wasn’t quite so bad now he picked Kat up on the way.

      It was unlikely that there would be many people around at that hour, so I didn’t bother with makeup and just put a jacket on over my working outfit of jeans and a T-shirt, with a blue and white spotty cardigan for warmth, all lightly smeared and fragranced with chocolate – glamour personified. I was closing the door before I remembered I hadn’t even brushed my hair, but I didn’t bother going back.

      The air was cold and damp and the sky was paling into a reluctant and jaundiced dawn. There was no one about in Angel Lane, though I could hear the steady pestle-and-mortar sound of Mrs Snowball donkey-stoning the flags in front of the Falling Star.

      I looked back at her over my shoulder as I turned the corner into the High Street and she grinned and waved a pink, rubber-gloved hand at me. I returned the wave while walking backwards, thinking that it would be a miracle if I had that much energy when I was the wrong side of ninety, not to mention the flexibility to be able to get down onto a kneeling mat and back up again. She must be one of the livelier members of Grumps’ coven…

      Mrs Snowball’s smile suddenly vanished and she pointed behind me, gesticulating wildly. I whipped round, afraid I was about to collide with a lamp-post, but I wasn’t – the threat was much, much worse. For there, almost upon me, was a tall, dark figure from my past, the open wings of his long black leather coat flying back with each stride, so that he seemed to swoop down on me like a huge bird of prey.

      By his side trotted a small, jaunty white dog, so incongruous that it made me desperately hope that this was all just a really bad dream – until I realised that if it was, then the frantic thumping of my heart would have woken me up by now. There was a loud rushing noise in my ears that sounded like my guardian angel, either arriving or departing – and I sincerely hoped it was the former, because I needed her.

      He came to a jarring halt way too close for comfort and stared incredulously down at me as though I were the ghost of some half-remembered and not entirely delightful past.

       ‘Chloe?’

      For a second or two I was caught and drowning in those startled, turquoise eyes, in which swirled a hard-to-decipher mixture of emotions among which, bewilderingly, anger seemed to dominate. Then the light in them died and he took a step backwards, breaking the spell.

      ‘It is you,’ he said coolly. ‘I thought I’d conjured you up from thin air.’

      Released, both my wits and the power of speech returned to me with a rush and I didn’t need the white clerical collar around his throat, or even the silver crosses that dangled from the rings in his ears, glinting among the long, black curls, to tell me what he was doing here, however unlikely it seemed.

      ‘Yes, it’s me – but I’m not the Chloe Lyon you once knew, Raffy Sinclair!’ I said and then added, with a powerful uprush of bitterness and loathing, ‘And of all the parishes in all the country, why did you have to pick this one?’

      ‘I didn’t – it was chosen for me,’ he said, and those oh-so-familiar winged black eyebrows twitched together in a puzzled frown. By now he was probably wondering why I hadn’t thrown myself at him with cries of joy, as I’m sure any of his other ex-girlfriends would have done. ‘I had no idea you would be here, but I can’t see why you are upset about it when I—’

      But I didn’t even wait for him to finish his sentence, instead turning to flee back round the corner into the chocolate-scented sanctuary of my cottage, where I leaned against the door, panting, as though he might attempt to burst in at any moment.

      Jake, looking mildly surprised, was standing in the doorway between the sitting room and my workshop, a half-eaten piece of toast in one hand. ‘What’s up?’

      ‘Nothing – I just ran into the new vicar, that’s all!’ I said slightly hysterically, my voice wobbling. ‘It was a bit of a surprise.’